Adult neurogenesis in the olfactory bulb has been shown experimentally
to contribute to perceptual learning. Using a computational network
model we show that fundamental aspects of the adult neurogenesis
observed in the olfactory bulb -- the persistent addition of new
inhibitory granule cells to the network, their activity-dependent
survival, and the reciprocal character of their synapses with the
principal mitral cells -- are sufficient to restructure the network
and to alter its encoding of odor stimuli adaptively so as to reduce
the correlations between the bulbar representations of similar
stimuli. The model captures the experimentally observed
role of neurogenesis in perceptual learning and the enhanced response
of young granule cells to novel stimuli. Moreover, it makes specific
predictions for the type of odor enrichment that should be effective
in enhancing the ability of animals to discriminate similar odor
mixtures. NSF grant DMS-0719944.
Reference: 1 .
Chow SF, Wick SD, Riecke H (2012) Neurogenesis drives stimulus decorrelation in a model of the olfactory bulb. PLoS Comput Biol8:e1002398 [PubMed]